Corporate Safeguarding Policy

This role as defined by the Social Services and Well-Being Act 2014 has the final and indivisible responsibility for safeguarding issues to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and adults at risk. This role is fulfilled by Carmarthenshire Council’s Director of Communities.

The Statutory Director of Social Services has legal accountability for ensuring the Council has appropriate safeguarding measures in place to protect children, young people, and adults at risk and is the Chair of the Corporate Safeguarding Group.

The Director is responsible for reporting the effectiveness of these arrangements on a corporate level to the Chief Executive, Senior Management Team, Cabinet, and Council.

The statutory Director of Social Services is the point of contact for all other Directors to report serious safeguarding concerns, which may occur in their service area.

The Statutory Director of Social Services is responsible for ensuring appropriate action is taken including reporting to the Chief Executive and Lead Cabinet Member as necessary. Where appropriate areas of concern may be reported to the Regional Safeguarding Board.

The Chief Executive will ensure that there are effective safeguarding arrangements in place, including policies and procedures, that those policies and procedures are implemented, that there are effective governance arrangements in place and that all statutory requirements are being met.

Through one-to-one meetings with the statutory Director of Social Services, the Chief Executive is kept informed of relevant safeguarding issues.

The Council Leader has a clear commitment to safeguarding, however, the principle responsibility for safeguarding children and adults and corporate safeguarding is included in the portfolio of the lead cabinet member for Health and Social Services.

The Council Leader is responsible overall for providing political leadership to ensure the Council fulfils its duties and responsibilities for safeguarding.

The Lead Cabinet Member for Health and Social Services acts as the lead for all aspects of Corporate Safeguarding.

The Lead member for Health and Social Services will have regular one to one meeting, with the Statutory director for Social Services and is kept informed and updated on relevant corporate safeguarding matters. They will also attend the Corporate Safeguarding Group.

The Lead Member will be briefed on any sensitive cases that may be considered for Child or Adult Practice Reviews or may otherwise become a matter of public interest.

The Lead Member will work closely with, and take professional advice from, a range of Senior Officers within the Authority, as appropriate. The Lead Member will liaise and consult with other Cabinet Members on individual matters likely to affect their portfolios as set out in the Council’s Scheme of Delegation.

Cabinet Members will have regular meetings with directors and Heads of Service to ensure there is appropriate awareness and understanding of any corporate safeguarding matters within their respective Portfolio areas.

The Statutory Director of Social Services will brief relevant cabinet members on the effectiveness of adult protection/child protection arrangements and sensitive cases, which may become the subject of an adult practice or child practice review or may otherwise become a matter of public interest.

All elected members must familiarise themselves with this Policy, access training on their responsibilities and seek advice from the Director of Social Services if they are unclear about their responsibility for safeguarding.

The Corporate Safeguarding Policy will be communicated as part of the mandatory induction programme for all new elected members.

All elected members will be expected to attend training in respect of safeguarding children and adults at risk, Violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence and any additional safeguarding training priorities.

Elected members’ duties will be to keep children, young people and adults who are at risk, safe by:

• Ensuring that everyone understands their safeguarding responsibilities and accountabilities.
• Contributing to the creation and maintenance of a safe environment.
• Promoting safe practice and challenging poor or unsafe practice.
• Identifying where there are concerns and taking appropriate action to address them.

Directors are responsible for ensuring and assuring the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements within their respective directorates.

They are responsible for reporting any serious safeguarding concerns that may arise in their directorates to the Statutory Director of Social Services. They will brief their respective Cabinet Members on any safeguarding issues and on the general effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements and ensure that a departmental lead plays a full role within the governance arrangements of the authority.

Directors are responsible for ensuring the workforce within their Directorates are appropriately trained to identify and respond to safeguarding concerns.

Directors are responsible for ensuring that they have safeguarding operational procedures in place and Safeguarding Self-Evaluation Audits are undertaken for the relevant service areas within their Directorate.

Directors are required to report to the Corporate Safeguarding Group on safeguarding risks in their service area and the effectiveness of their directorate safeguarding arrangements.

All directorates will appoint a Head of Service as a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) for their respective service area. Through their Management Teams they will be jointly responsible for ensuring that all the statutory requirements in terms of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and adults receive due consideration.

All Heads of Service must ensure that where those posts are designated as regulated activity, their staff are checked through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) procedures and conform to the Policy and Guidelines for Safeguarding Children and Adults.

All Heads of Service must establish arrangements to ensure that staff comply with the requirement of this policy.

Everyone should know who to contact in their organisation for advice and they should not hesitate to discuss their concerns no matter how insignificant they may appear. Whilst every effort should be made to contact the Designated Safeguarding Lead, anyone can contact social services directly. Every service area within the Council is required to nominate a Designated Safeguarding Lead for dealing with safeguarding children and adult issues. In Carmarthenshire this is a Head of Service. They are responsible for:

• Acting as an overarching and key source of advice and support for other staff in their Service on all safeguarding issues
• Ensuring robust arrangements are in place for staff to access day to day practice advice and support for safeguarding from their line managers
• Support staff to refer or take the lead in reporting safeguarding concerns to Social Services as appropriate
• Being familiar with the Council’s Corporate Safeguarding Policy and the Wales Safeguarding Procedures as they relate to Children’s and Adult’s safeguarding
• Ensuring the operational procedures for safeguarding within the directorate are compliant with legislation and statutory guidance and are issued to all staff
• Representing their service area on the Corporate Safeguarding Group
• Ensuring compliance with policies and guidance within their service area and reporting this to the Corporate Safeguarding Group
• Attending relevant training
• Ensuring members of the workforce within their Services attend training at levels appropriate to their roles and functions and maintain management information in relation to attendance on training
• Ensuring safeguarding responsibilities are highlighted through staff induction processes, team meetings, supervision and staff briefings
• Ensuring safeguarding audits are completed regularly

All Local Authorities will have an identified senior manager responsible for safeguarding who is accountable and responsible for allegations against professionals and those in a position of trust. The title given to the role is the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) Carmarthenshire Council has a LADO for Childrens services and a LADO for Adult Services. The LADO will also work with children’s and adults’ services to give advice and guidance on safeguarding.

Every line manager/supervisor is responsible for ensuring that the workforce for whom they are responsible (including agency, consultants, and volunteers) receive the training they need, in accordance with the National Safeguarding Training, Learning and Development Standards, proportionate to their role and responsibilities.

Managers must proactively analyse where risks to safeguarding are most likely to arise in their service(s) and ensure they have appropriate operational procedures and supporting systems in place to manage these well.

They must ensure safeguarding is part of every employee/volunteer’s induction and identify anyone who is likely to come into contact with children or adults at risk as part of their role. They must ensure that where required, DBS checks are undertaken at the appropriate level.

Safeguarding should be a standardised item for staff supervision and team meetings.

Managers must ensure that all employees/volunteers are aware of how to report safeguarding concerns and to whom and that they are aware of the Council’s Whistleblowing Policy.

Managers are responsible for ensuring employees/volunteers are aware that they must conduct themselves in a manner that safeguards and promotes the wellbeing of children and adults at risk.

Managers must provide employees/volunteers with guidance about responding to safeguarding concerns as required.

Managers must ensure that contracts and agreements satisfy the Council’s requirements for training, induction and guidance and that ongoing monitoring is in place to ensure continued consistency with the contract requirements.

Commissioners will be responsible for ensuring that contractual arrangements specify responsibilities in relation to safeguarding in accordance with the Policy and existing commissioning policy.

When commissioning services, careful consideration must be given as to what safeguarding measures are required of contractors or service providers. For example:

• DBS checks at the appropriate level – it is expected that DBS checks must be in place for any commissioned transport services
• Safeguarding policies
• Safeguarding training
• Ethical supply chain practice
• Modern slavery policy.

This would apply to services where contractors are likely to come into contact with children, young people or adults at risk and can form part of the contract management arrangements.

Contract Managers (who may also be commissioners) have responsibility to ensure that the proposals and requirements set out in contracts or Service Level Agreements are adhered to by providers on an ongoing basis through the term of the contract and to ensure that they are aware of any new developments e.g. changes in legislation or guidance and communicated through contract management events.

Contractors are also responsible for informing relevant managers of the Council about any concerns they may have, and to report safeguarding concerns to Adult or Children's Social Services department.

Every service area of the Council has a role to play and must take full ownership of their safeguarding responsibilities. The Council expects every member of the workforce to take all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of any child or adult at risk involved in Council activity and report their concerns to Social Services.

The DCPT has responsibility for safeguarding and child protection. All schools will also have their own child protection policy. The policy will identify the key personnel.

Any concerns around safeguarding should be reported to the DCPT or the deputy in their DCPO’s absence.

Although the Designated Child Protection Teacher is the person with responsibility for child protection and safeguarding, if a member of staff has concerns that a matter has not been addressed, they can make a direct referral to Social Services.

The Corporate Safeguarding lead will work with the Council’s statutory Director for Social Services to ensure there are effective arrangements to safeguard and protect children and adults at risk across the Council. Specifically to:

• Monitor the implementation of and compliance with this Policy across the Council
• Ensure that there is a corporate safeguarding training programme in place
• Set out clear lines of accountability.
• Ensure that there are Designated Safeguarding Leads within each service area.
• Ensure that annual service reports are prepared.
• Ensure that the annual corporate safeguarding report for Scrutiny is delivered.